Alumnus earns first professional lead broadcaster job

As professional baseball gets ready to begin the 2023 season, so too, does CMU alumnus, Riley Edwards (’21). The former voice of CMU baseball will soon begin his first season as the play-by-play broadcaster/media relations and broadcasting manager for the Bowling Green Hot Rods, the High-A minor league affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays.

“I think everything I did since I arrived at CMU set me up to take advantage of opportunities like this,” Edwards says. “I know there’s a lot more work to do after this, but it feels good.”

As a freshman, Edwards got involved with the student radio station and began broadcasting local high school football games. He then worked on broadcasts for the CMU women’s basketball, baseball, and softball teams, adding even more sports to his resume as his time at CMU wore on.

“It didn’t matter what sport it was,” Edwards says. “I just did as many things as possible that would become available. TV, radio, it didn’t matter. Volleyball, wrestling, basketball, gymnastics…there wasn’t much that I’d turn down.”

Edwards eventually became the sports director at the radio station and used his summers to intern with minor league baseball teams across the Midwest and East Coast. One team he worked with was the Hot Rods, and when the main broadcaster took another job, he got the call to move up from the number two role, to number one.

“Where I’m starting now, I think, is perfect,” Edwards says. “I’d really like to end up in the Major Leagues somewhere. That’s a goal I don’t have a timetable for because it’s not easy to move up in this business. But it doesn’t really matter which team. I’ll go anywhere.”